Urban Studies

This paper estimates the demand functions for a set of housing attributes for the city of Ibadan, Nigeria, using Rosen's two-step estimation procedure. The empirical results reveal that the most important determinants of the demand for housing attributes are: income, price of the attribute in question, household size and the occupational status of the head of household. The paper further indicates that the demand for housing attributes is inelastic as all estimated elasticities are below unity.

Empirical analysis of the price of vacant lots sold in three Toronto suburban municipalities during the 1977-86 period shows that development impact fees directly increased lot prices by approximately 1.2 times the size of the fee. The extent of the increase was related to city growth rates. In general, the faster the rate of growth the lower was the price effect of development impact fees. The effects of growth, however, were not consistent across the three municipalities as one municipality appeared to be lowering its fees in response to reductions in growth rates. The policy environment within which fees are implemented and the way fees are adjusted appear to influence their effect on lot prices. The estimated model also suggests that increases in expected future construction costs reduce current lot prices. General increases in the consumers' shelter costs tend to inflate the price of vacant lots. The expectation of future increases in the cost of land development, whether it is due to increases in material prices, wages, development approval processes, growth controls or impact fees, tends to reduce current lot prices. The indirect price effects of introducing and expanding development impact fees tend to counter their direct effects by reducing the size of urban growth premiums.

Most attempts to explain land prices assume free competition between suppliers and demanders of land. If there are constraints on this competition (e.g. land-use planning) this is added as a modification to the theory. When, however, the supply of building land is in the hands of public agencies, which determine the volume and price of supply specified by land use and location, a different theoretical approach is needed. In this situation, certain economic principles apply which determine the maximum and minimum prices at which land will be bought for development and at which serviced building land will be supplied for development. However, both the limits of this range and the actual land prices within it will depend on political choices made by the public agencies. In the Netherlands, municipalities dominate the supply of land for development and redevelopment. Information about the way Dutch municipalities make the political choices and about the actual land prices there, suggests they make the political choices in a consistent way: they see themselves as suppliers of a public utility, namely building land. They try to supply so that there is never any scarcity, so that quality is high, so that prices no more than cover costs. The resulting prices might not be low, but they represent good value for money, because no-one reaps development gains directly. These are low because disposal prices are lower than could be realised, or development gains are absorbed in providing either a better quality of land servicing or more land for social uses.

This paper examines planning delay and identifies the difficulty in establishing an appropriate definition and measure of delay. It then outlines an economic framework for the analysis of delay costs, distinguishing between private costs and the various elements of social cost. It shows that the costs of delay are contingent upon the restrictiveness of planning and should be assessed in relation to the benefits of planning control. Available estimates of delay cost are identified, but are shown to be deficient even as measures of the private cost of delay. Various suggestions are made for the improvement of existing approaches, but it is concluded that the assessment of private and social delay costs requires case-study research which distinguishes between property sectors, locations and different points in the cycle of property development.

Foreclosure proceedings are the primary cause of real-estate auction sales in the US. Given the added legal constraints and risk associated with foreclosure proceedings, it is an empirical question as to whether the resulting prices are a function of the usual underlying factors of physical characteristics, locational benefits and neighbourhood effects which motivate normal market sale pricing. Using a hedonic pricing model common in the analysis of market sale prices, we find systematically determined price behaviour which replicates market pricing

This paper presents the results of a survey of tenants' associations in six local authority areas in Britain. The aim is to dispel the prevalent notion that there is a common reason for the formation of tenants' associations and that they travel a similar evolutionary path. Rather the paper aims to show that tenants' groups are formed for a variety of reasons and can follow a number of paths. It draws particular attention to the actions and attitudes of housing managers and councillors which can have a vital influence on whether tenants' groups can achieve their goals.

This paper presents a model which illustrates the interaction between the labour and real estate markets in the determination of the value of local amenities. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the importance of functional form in measuring the quality of life (QOL) in urban areas. Using 1980 data on US urban counties, this specification provides new options for QOL estimates as an extension of previous work. This study also discusses the problems associated with summarising QOL in a one-dimensional monotonic ranking. One form of a multi-dimensional rating system is presented for comparison.

This paper first outlines the problems and opportunities which are presently motivating urban local government in the UK to begin intervention in the development of strategic urban information and communications technologies (ICTs or 'electronic infrastructures'). This intervention, it is argued—although just commencing—is likely to have important long-term implications for urban policy and governance, as ICTs become ever-more central strategic urban infrastructures. Survey evidence of the perceptions of the impacts of electronic infrastructures amongst local policy-makers is then presented. The paper finishes by discussing a spectrum of local policy roles in ICTs presently under development in the UK amongst beading-edge' local authorities, and attempts to examine these within their wider contexts of contemporary urban strategy-making.

This study applies a recently developed methodology in order to estimate the extent of the inequality of unemployment experience in Aberdeen. The findings show that the unemployment burden is indeed unequally shared and that this inequality exhibits only a limited decrease through time.